Buttered Cabbage
MAKES: 4 servings
TIME: 20 minutes
For a two-ingredient vegetable dish, this is pretty great, especially when you consider cabbage is a vegetable that everyone pooh-poohs. But even with ordinary white cabbage, this is simply delicious (it's a tad better with Savoy, I'll admit), largely because you don't overcook the cabbage. For extra flavor, melt the butter with a clove of garlic, some minced shallot, or a little good paprika.
Serve this as a side dish or combined with other relatively plain dishes, like Boiled Potatoes, Fresh Egg Noodles with Scallions and Paprika, or Chickpeas in Their Own Broth, with Crisp Bread Crumbs.
Other vegetables you can use: Of course this is a basic vegetable preparation, but to keep it in the same spirit, think collards, kale, bok choy, and the like.
Salt
2 to 4 tablespoons butter
About 20 cabbage leaves
Put a medium to large pot of water on to boil and salt it well. Put the butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat and melt it; if you let it brown a little bit, so much the better, but don't burn it.
When the water boils, add the cabbage and cook, stirring every now and then, until it becomes tender, about 5 minutes. Remove with tongs or a slotted spoon and drain well; toss gently with the melted butter and serve.
